Experience the mayhem and action of OutRun Online Arcade as you test your time, speed, and handling ability, bringing your next-gen skills online with this coin-op classic.

Feel the kick as you put your foot to the floor in one of 10 high-performance Ferraris racing your way across the U.S. with an open top and a girl by your side. Winding roads, beautiful beaches and big city lights—it's mile after mile of unrelenting acceleration through 15 action-packed courses, all visually enhanced in stunning high definition. Jump behind the wheel for the ultimate arcade racing experience and push yourself on the road as you race up to six others with online multiplayer. OutRun Online Arcade … it's a beautiful journey!

* Competition: OutRun Online Arcade delivers online multiplayer for up to six players for the first time on Xbox LIVE Arcade.
* Courses and cars: Race through 15 glorious courses in 10 licensed Ferrari cars for the ultimate OutRun Online Arcade ride.
* Arcade modes: The fast-paced arcade action thrills with heart attack and time attack modes.
* Classic tracks: Catch the cool sounds of OutRun Online Arcade with smashing tracks alongside stunning new visuals.

Here's a weird case of potential exclusivity. Outrun Online Arcade -- previously announced for Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network -- will not be coming to the PlayStation 3 ... in North America.

Sega has confirmed with CVG that the game will be skipping its stop on North American PSN when it becomes available later this year. If you only own a PS3 in the US and want to play Outrun Online Arcade, you might want to consider picking up an Xbox 360. Or, create a European account -- the game will be available on both XBLA and PSN across Europe.

Regardless of the reasons (Sega declined to comment on specifics), North American PS3 fans of arcade racers should shed tears.

[Edit: Seems I was being a bit retarded when I first read the press release. Updated post to clarify the correct release dates]

Sega Europe has confirmed the pricing and release date for the highly anticipated (well by us at least) OutRun Online Arcade. They have confirmed the release date to be April 16th on PSN and April 15th on XBLA. Both versions should be priced at £7.99/ 9.99Euros.

Anyway the more exciting OutRun news is that Sega Europe has also quasi-announced that there will be a great OutRun contest when the game is launched. They are yet to announce the full details but have told us what the prize is and it sounds amazing.

[ Update: Sega America confirmed it will cost 800 points and come out on April 15th. Mentions nothing about the PSN version, that seems to be Europe only as of now.]

I think that's because C2C was based off the PS2 version. The Xbox ver of Outrun 2 looks much better.

What ? wasn't the arcade running off that xbox based board ?
I noticed C2C looked much more pixelated than Outrun 2, at first i thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then i made a direct comparison and assumed they lowered the res. to allow for a slight increase in detail (maybe new tracks were more complex ? ) and remove the few slowdowns O2 suffered from.
What kept them from using the original engine ? Boggling.

Anyway, it still isn't clear to me if outrun online arcade will include tracks from both outrun 2 and C2C or just C2C. I would miss a few tracks from O2 if that's the case, especially greece.

I have both Xbox discs and it is true that Outrun looks better than C2C.

They both look pretty nice through the 360 scaling.

Looking at the new 1280x720 screenies, it does look to me like the actual 3D rendering is 720p but that the screenshots are overcompressed.

They could have released one of the old discs as an Xbox Original, and it wouldn't be 720p, it wouldn't have online leaderboards, it wouldn't work with 360 chat, and it would cost $15. I like seeing this at $10.

Originally Posted by leehom

Can I purchase a U.S. PSN card and redeem it in my EU account? This game is a must buy for me. I loooooved this game at the arcades.

Wait to make sure it isn't IP blocked. If it's a moneyhat exclusive, it might be. I kind of doubt that, though.

Only 720p, really? What was there excuse for jettisoning native 1080p rendering? The hardware is more than capable enough for it. The difference between "HD" outrun and good old Outrun 2006 for the PC is pretty staggering.

Only 720p, really? What was there excuse for jettisoning native 1080p rendering? The hardware is more than capable enough for it. The difference between "HD" outrun and good old Outrun 2006 for the PC is pretty staggering.

I'll pass, thanks.

Maybe you should try comparing shots with similar compression quality. Check out the enormous compression artifacts between the time and score in the console shot, in particular.